"El Retrato de la Burguesía" (Portrait of the Bourgeoisie) Mural at SME

Mexican muralism is one of the country's best-known artistic movements. From the 1920s to the '70s, the 20th century was the medium's boom, with some of its key artists being Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros. The three of them are also known for their socialist and communist political ideals. Of these, Alfaro Siqueiros is often thought of as the most radical, as it is believed he was involved in an assassination attempt on Leon Trotsky https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/museo-casa-de-leon-trotsky, given that his views were more aligned with Stalinism. He was also imprisoned 7 times for his participation in protests and, along with Rivera, founded a syndicate for revolutionary artists.

Therefore, it makes sense that Alfaro worked on this 1939 mural for the headquarters of the SME (Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas). Among several collaborators, his main partner was an artist he met in Spain: Josep Renau from Valencia. Renau was exiled in Mexico due to the Spanish Civil War, in which Alfaro fought as a volunteer from 1936-39. Renau, who was politically affiliated to the left, fled a Spain controlled by dictator Francisco Franco, and one of the main tenets of Francoism was its staunch repression of ideologies like anarchy and communism.

Alfaro and Renau's combined ideals, and unusual muralist techniques for its time like the aerograph and its placing over multiple walls at the top of a staircase, would result in "El Retrato de la Burguesía", a mural that is at times brutal and gory in its denouncement of authoritarianism and capitalism. Completed in the year that saw the end of the Spanish Civil War and the start of WWII, the imagery of Nazi, Francoist and fascist armies is an imposing presence in the work. In addition to their denouncements of European totalitarianism, the artists also criticize capitalism, in particular the rapidly-automatizing variant best-represented at the time by the U.S.A.

Imagery of machines crushing skulls and workers, many of them Black, and spewing out gold coins shows the muralists' contempt for the "free market". Above the chaos, a power mast topped with an SME flag provides the brightest light in the work. The idealized notion of unionized blue-collar workers represented by the Electricians' Syndicate thus becomes the artists' suggestion of a better way forward.